What is the most expensive movie ever made?

9 November, 2023

Audience watching a film in a cinema

Hollywood blockbusters rake in millions (or billions if they’re lucky) at the global box office, but cost an incredible amount to make too. Here, we have a list of the most expensive movies ever made.

The list of the most expensive movies made in history is ever-changing, with both budgets and prices going up every year.

Last year, James Cameron described the production cost of Avatar: The Way Of Water as “very fucking expensive”, telling GQ that the sequel to his 2009 blockbuster – the most successful film of all time – cost so much to make that he told the studio it represented “the worst business case in movie history”.

Cameron claimed that, in order for the sequel to simply break even, it would have to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history”.

“That’s your threshold,” he said. “That’s your break even.”

Despite this, it is not the most expensive film in history. For that, head below to see the films that have cost even more to make.

Avatar
‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’. CREDIT: 20th Century Studios

What is the most expensive movie ever made?

Both with and without adjustments made for inflation, 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens is considered the most expensive movie of all time, with JJ Abrams’ first film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy costing a mammoth $447million (£363m).

Behind it with a spend of $432m (£351m) is 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, while other films in the top 10 include Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (£338m), Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (£308m) and Avengers: Age Of Ultron (£297m).

The first Avatar film currently sits as the highest-grossing film of all time with a haul of $2.9bn (£2.4bn). Avengers: Endgame is second with $2.79bn (£2.45bn), while Titanic comes in at third with $2.2bn (£2.19bn).

The fourth and fifth highest-grossing films of all time are The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War, which took in $2.05bn (£1.72bn) and $2.04bn (£1.7bn), respectively.

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